Jay Gayne Rescher (19 December1924 – 29 February2008; age 83) was a Hollywood cinematographer who served as Director of Photography on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Although he started his career working on motion pictures in the 1950s, he began working primarily in television in the 1970s; in fact, Star Trek II was one of only three feature films Rescher worked on after 1973 (the others being 1976's Norman... Is That You? and 1978's Olly, Olly, Oxen Free). After making the transition to television, Rescher received a total of three Emmy Awards and five Emmy nominations for his work in that medium.

Contents

Rescher's first motion picture was Elia Kazan's acclaimed 1957 drama A Face in the Crowd. His subsequent film credits included 1960's Murder, Inc. (with Seymour Cassel), 1968's Rachel, Rachel, 1969's John and Mary, 1971's A New Leaf (with Graham Jarvis), and 1974's Claudine. He worked on his first made-for-TV movie, The Third Girl from the Left, in 1973, after which he rarely worked on features again.

Rescher worked on the Maviola series of TV movies, all of which debuted in May 1980 and all of which were directed by John Erman: This Year's Blonde (featuring Michael Strong and Vic Tayback), The Scarlett O'Hara War (with Warren Munson, Clive Revill, Patricia Smith and Don Keefer), and The Silent Lovers (starring Brian Keith, featuring John Rubinstein, Terrence E. McNally and music by Gerald Fried). For his work on the latter, Rescher received his first Emmy Award nomination, and his first win, for Outstanding Cinematography for a Limited Series or a Special. His second and third Emmy nominations came for his work on the 1981 TV movies Bitter Harvest (featuring Dwight Schultz) and The Princess and the Cabbie (featuring Ellen Geer); he earned a fourth nomination for the 1983 Mike Hammer thriller Murder Me, Murder You (featuring Michelle Phillips).

In addition to his Emmy Awards, Rescher received four award nominations from the American Society of Cinematographers for his work on Promise, Shooter, 1989's Single Women Married Man (starring Jeanetta Arnette), and Lucky/Chances. He won the awards for the latter two.